1. Technical Field
The field relates to geographical information systems.
2. Background
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) capture, store, manage and display data elements according to geospatial coordinates. For example, a Google Earth™ application renders satellite imagery, terrain, vectors and other data over a three-dimensional geometry representing the Earth's surface. Other GIS applications, such as a Google Street View application, provide the experience of exploring a city with panoramic views while navigating along a street.
Advertisements for local businesses may be displayed within 3D geographic environments such as a Google Earth™ application and a Google Street View application. Existing techniques for displaying advertisements include flat markers or icons that convey little information and virtual rectangular billboards applied to a flat surface.
These rectangular billboards have a number of problems. A billboard applied to a flat surface such as a storefront may hide part of the storefront. Rectangular billboards are also distorted when viewed from certain viewpoints. Imagine three adjacent stores “A”, “B” and “C” with rectangular billboards on their storefronts. From a street viewpoint in front of “A”, the “A” billboard will be relatively square, but the “B” and “C” billboards will be distorted because of their perspectives. Floating billboards have been tried but these are too intrusive to the user experience and are strangely unrealistic when the user begins to navigate in the 3D space.
Some billboards may not be clearly displayed because available perspectives may be limited due to the nature of incremental navigation. For example, it may be impossible to stop in front of store “B” but one can stop in front of “C”. Now the “C” billboard is readable, but the “B” billboard is never clearly seen. FIGS. 1-3 illustrate this problem. FIG. 1 shows an example GIS display view 100 of a city as viewed from a street. GIS view 100 includes buildings along either side of the street and traffic, such as an oncoming bus 101 in the opposing lane. Rectangular billboard 102 displays an advertisement that is not clearly visible from this perspective. A user may navigate to another incremental position within the GIS application using navigation control 104.
FIG. 2 shows another example GIS display view 200 from the perspective of the next incremental position within the GIS application. Display view 200 shows the street as viewed from the opposite direction. For instance, following car 106 is shown in the lane in the place of the previous viewpoint. Bus 101 in the other lane is now shown from behind. Rectangular billboard 102 is shown on the wall in the same geographical location. However, the incremental advancement did not place the user in front of the billboard, as would be shown in example GIS display view 300 of FIG. 3. Rather, the user advanced past the storefront with billboard 102, rendering billboard 102, distorted, out of view and ineffective.